A brief Child Protective Services cost-saving measure that was supposed to end after five days in December 2009 has led to the failure to investigate thousands of cases of alleged child abuse, an official testified today.

Rep. Debbie Lesko will challenge incumbent Republican Sen. Rick Murphy in Legislative District 21, citing concerns that his ongoing “personal struggles” could cost the GOP a seat in the Arizona Senate.

A report examining more than 400 sex-crime cases that were inadequately investigated or not looked into at all by an Arizona sheriff's office attributes the failures to understaffing and mismanagement, including hundreds of pieces of evidence intended for storage that were instead left in offices or taken home by detectives.